


Late Night Wake Up Call

by robertskycard



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Angst, Awkward Tension, F/M, Fear of Discovery, Friendship/Love, Gen, Guilt, Hiding in Plain Sight, Loss of Control, Paranoia, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-01 18:37:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11492307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robertskycard/pseuds/robertskycard
Summary: Terra hasn't been adjusting well since she last saw Beast Boy. To her, some secrets are best left buried, including her entire identity. But now that she's spoken to him again, all those memories she's kept buried have come back to haunt her, and it's her burden to fight the ghosts of the past.





	1. Drunk Dial

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! robertskycard here!
> 
> Teen Titans was the show that got me to start enjoying super hero stories. The reason was because it was a discovery of characters I'd never heard of before (except for Robin, basically the only one tying any of it together with stuff I'd heard before as a kid). The most impactful story arc (to me) was the Terra arc in season 2. Love her or hate her, Terra is without a doubt one of the most divisive characters of Teen Titans. She was (and still is) one of my absolute favorite characters. I couldn't really voice why then, but I think I related to her so well because of how she appeared to be a confident individual but in truth was ruled by her fears. This dichotomy and her inability to let herself be vulnerable became destructive, and even though she was working with the bad guy, I was rooting for her to come back and join the team for real. Then, she killed Slade and sacrificed herself to stop that volcano. Her downfall was brought about by fear, manipulation, her own poor judgement, and, ultimately, her desire to set things right with the friends she cares about.
> 
> I'm not sure why, but I stopped watching Teen Titans after a bit, I think around the time season 3 was doing reruns in anticipation for season 4. A few years down the line, I'm watching a trailer for this game. You may have heard of it. It's called The Last of Us. Anyway, I'm watching Ellie interact with Joel and I have no idea why but Ellie's voice sounds extremely familiar. I talk with my brother about it and he says, "Yeah, that's weird, I've heard that voice, too." So we end up doing some digging and, lo and behold, Ellie's voice actor, Ashley Johnson, had also been Terra's voice actor in Teen Titans. A little while after that, my brother and I get to reminiscing about how awesome that show was and then we decide to see if we can dig it up. Lo and behold, all five seasons were on Xbox video service and we ended up buying and bingewatching them all.
> 
> It came as a MASSIVE surprise to me when Terra showed up at the end, and it was even more heartbreaking to see her send Beast Boy off like she did.
> 
> Which brings us to this fic. Ultimately, I was inspired to write this as part of a larger, somewhat OC centric semi-fix-fic, which goes against pretty much every rule I set for myself when writing fanfiction. This scene was Terra's reintroduction before the real plot kicked off, where the OC convinces Terra to try to be a hero again (albeit begrudgingly). It was an overly long, complicated story where Terra would eventually forgive herself for what she had done to the Titans and she would ultimately rejoin the core five as the sixth member. Eventually, I scrapped that idea. In the end, I'm certain that Terra could come to forgive herself on her own, and doing so would create a much more human and relatable narrative than an OC superhero smacking some sense into her.
> 
> I think the creators of Teen Titans have rather solid reasoning for Terra not wanting to rejoin the team. I also believe that Terra remembered everything that happened and pretended not to recognize Beast Boy, which I'm pretty sure is Word of God. With that said, I also really enjoyed the chemistry between her and Beast Boy (in fact, I'm pretty sure Beast Boy/Terra was my first OTP) and it really bugged me that their relationship never really got the happy ending I felt it deserved, while Starfire and Robin got a whole movie dedicated to theirs. That (and a superhero tabletop RPG called Mutants and Masterminds) inspired the original from whence this one-shot came. However, as a writer, I'm not in the habit of giving characters under my control a happy ending. I'm cruel, almost to a needless degree. I'm not good at fluff. I tend to write a lot about guilt, fear, and anger. A lot of what I write takes place in the minds of the characters on the page.
> 
> So here it is! The first fanfic I posted for Teen Titans! Enjoy!

"Tara! You gonna close up shop?"

"Yeah. You can take off, Doug."

"Thanks. See you tomorrow!"

"You too!" Tara said cheerily. Tara never had any reason not to be cheerful. She waved as Doug slid out the door, the bell ringing gently as it closed behind him and he waved through the window of the diner. She continued setting chairs upside down on the tables and mopping. Truthfully, she would have rather he stayed, rather he'd made some innocuous comment about her hair, her shoes, her eyes, rather he stayed and sheepishly asked her on a date, or even just a friendly hangout. Tara would have liked that kind of thing. She didn't like the oppressive silence, the quiet squeak of her sneakers on a wet floor. She didn't like that when she was alone, she couldn't hide under a cheerful veneer. When she was alone, she had to face who she truly was.

She had to face Terra.

She looked down at her mop bucket. In the red glow of the neon lights, the dirty mop water looked like blood.

_I killed him. I killed Slade._

She continued mopping, hoping the routine would keep her mind busy. Instead, it gave her time to think.

_"How could you lose something you never had?"_

_"Slade was right. You never had any friends."_

No. Slade said that to Terra. Beast Boy said that. Not her. Not to Tara.  _They're not your friends, they're Terra's friends. They're superheroes. You're not._

Tara wheeled the mop back to the closet, dumping the bucket and rinsing it thoroughly. She rung out and hung up the mop, making certain it was as dry as she could make it so it wouldn't mold. She and Doug had already wiped down the tables and the counter. She made sure each of the registers was locked, checked the freezers to see if they were locked, and then went into the back. She collected her backpack, her books inside, and began to shut off the lights.

It was then that she saw the man leaning against the window, his palm against the glass. His hair was dark and stringy, hanging around his face. His skin was pale, sweaty, and he took big, gulping breaths. He was hunched over, perhaps about to throw up.  _Drunk_ , she thought, _probably homeless by the look of his tattered clothes_. Tara had seen her fair share of them. Terra had, too, and had watched them piss themselves in alleys where she slept. She went to the other windows, closing the blinds one by one. When she got to the last window, he was still there. She knocked on the window to get his attention, shooting him an annoyed glare.

"Hey!" she snapped, "Buzz off!"

Terra would never have said that. Terra would have understood. Terra would have offered him half of the half-eaten sandwich she yanked out of a dumpster. But Tara had a job. She had school. She had friends. Tara was an innocent little girl with no clue about the real world. So she snapped the blinds closed instead.

She went into the back, making a once over, checking that every single thing had been taken care of. Doors locked, lights off. Everything in its proper place. She slung her backpack on, fiddling with the keys as she made her way toward the door. She looked back out toward the window. She couldn't see him through the blinds, but she hoped he wasn't out there. She went toward the door and snapped off the outside lights. The dull red became black as she opened and locked the front doors. She shut them and tested them, making sure they held firm. They did. She turned to walk away and saw the man still standing there, hunched over, palm against the window.

She approached him. Tara was annoyed. Terra was concerned.

"Can I help you?" she said, cocking her eyebrow.

The man fell forward onto the sidewalk, not even bracing himself. Drunks, she thought.

Tara probably would leave the man to wake up in a puddle of his own vomit. Terra knew someone who drowned that way. She looked around. There was no one around, no one who would see. She decided she could be Terra. Just for a few minutes.

"Okay, buddy, let's get you on your feet," she said as she reached down to grab him. She knew of a few shelters where they'd take him in even as drunk as he was. Terra had marked them as soon as she came to the city.

She grabbed onto his side and began to roll him over. He didn't move and was a lot heavier than he looked.

"Geez, what did you eat?" she groaned as she pulled on him harder, yanking with all her might. Finally he rolled over.

Her blood turned to ice.

His skin was pale and cold, his eyes rolled up into their sockets. His white shirt was stained red below the chest and the handle of a kitchen knife protruded from his gut. Terra backed away, hands before her. It was then that she looked at her own hands. They were stained with his blood.

"How does it feel, Terra? To know you have my blood on your hands?"

She looked. The dead man wore Slade's mask.

Terra woke up screaming.

* * *

There was a knock on the door about fifteen minutes after she woke up, heralded by flashing blue and red lights. Mrs. Jenkins, the crazy old lady three doors down with too many cats, had heard the scream and called the cops. The police came to the complex a lot due to her constant noise complaints, but it seemed this time they had a legitimate reason to check out her statement. It was because of this that they were knocking on Terra's door.

 ** _Tara's_** _door_ , she reminded herself,  _Terra's dead_.

She opened the door to see two young men in black and white patrol uniforms, the red eyes of their helmets seeming to bore into her soul.

"Ma'am, we were called about a domestic disturbance for this apartment. Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine, officer," she said drowsily, "I just had a nightmare."

"Must have been some nightmare. We got three phone calls from this complex reporting that they heard a terrified scream."

 _You have no idea_.

"It was pretty scary," she said, "But it was just a dream."

_I killed him._

_No._  Terra _killed him. You were never even there._

"Well, be that as it may, we'd like to take a look around. We've been hearing reports of a prowler around here and we just want to make sure everything's okay."

_Get a warrant._

"Sure. Knock yourself out."

The officers stepped into the small, grungy apartment, looking around.

"Nice place you got here."

_The roaches love it._

"You live here alone?"

"Yeah."

"Pretty young to be living alone. Do you-"

"I have my emancipation documents and my citizenship papers. You guys always ask every time Mrs. Jenkins calls," Tara grumbled, opening a drawer on the stand she had by the door and presenting the papers to him

Tara Markov was a Russian immigrant and legally emancipated. Terra was still technically a wanted criminal.

"Just making sure," he said, looking the papers up and down. After handing them back, he looked at his partner and they both shrugged.

"Well, it seems like nothing's out of the ordinary. Sorry for taking your time. We'll see ourselves out. Have a good night, ma'am."

"You, too. Thanks, officers."

She shut the door and locked it behind them. She leaned against it and slid down until she sat at its base.  _I'm Tara. I'm Tara. That nightmare was meant for someone else. I never hurt my friends. I never killed anyone. I'm not a murderer._

She looked at her hands. They were pale and had red marks where her nails had dug into her palms. But they weren't stained with blood. She blinked.

_"Things change, Beast Boy. The girl you want me to be is just a memory."_

Tara didn't know him from Adam. Terra...didn't know anything. She was dead. She stood up and slipped back into bed, staring at the ceiling, looking at where the paint had peeled from the wall in the corner. She sighed, vowing to wake up early tomorrow and fix the place up, knowing that by dawn she'd forget completely. She tossed and turned, not wanting to revisit her nightmare. It plagued her. The cold, dead face. The warm blood on her hands. It had seemed so real, right until the end.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand just as she was about to drift off. She grabbed it and looked at the caller I.D. She didn't recognize the number, so let it go to voicemail. Probably someone drunk-dialing their ex-girlfriend or boyfriend. Anytime she had a phone call at this time of night, it was invariably one of those. All the more reason to let the voicemail handle it. They'd hear the obligatory 'Hi, this is Tara, sorry I can't come to the phone right now, so leave a message after the beep,' and then they'd try to call the right number. One time, a guy actually left a message on her phone. It was to someone else named Tara. At first, she'd been terrified, until the guy said something about 'chocolate hair.' After her initial shock and subsequent relief, she found the message pretty funny. She had called him the following morning and informed the hungover voice on the other end that he'd called the wrong number. She had then-

Her phone buzzed again. She checked it. Same number as the first time tonight. No message from the first call, either. She shrugged and let it go to voicemail. She decided that she needed to-

The phone buzzed again. Same number. Obviously, whoever this drunk was didn't seem to be getting the message. She snatched up her phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Tara?" Doug's voice slurred on the other line, the dull thump of bass from the party's music coming through the line.

 _Great_. Her night-shift coworker was drunk again. Doug was a college student at Jump University, working at the same diner she did because his parents told him that they'd only finance his college education if he kept a steady job. So he'd spend most of his time at school and then his job, but after that he'd go out to house parties all night. Despite his habits, he was always friendly toward her and had a perpetually calm, sheepish demeanor that was only inhibited when he was drunk.

"Tara? You there?"

She looked at the clock. 1:28 a.m.

"You're drunk."

"I was thinkin,'" he slurred into the phone, "We've been buddies for a while, right?"

"Doug, why are you calling me? It's almost 1:30 in the morning."

"I know, buts hear me out. I've got...I've got the...heeeey, buddy!" he giggled on the other end.

"What, Doug?"

"I don't wanna...don't wanna ruin...our friendship but I wanna take you out sometime."

And there it was. Tara'd been waiting for weeks. But not like this. Not at 1:30 in the morning, slurring his words as he tried to keep from peeing all over himself.

"Tara?"

"I'm here."

"So whaddaya think?"

"I think you should probably go home, take a nap, then call me when you're sober."

"Oh. Okay," Doug said, his voice sounding disappointed. Heartbroken.

"I'm not saying no. I'm saying call me when you sober up tomorrow. Okay?"

"Okay," he sounded a little happier. Hopeful.

"Now can you hand the phone back to whoever you borrowed it from? Good night."

"Okay. Good night, Tara."

The line hung up. She set her phone back on the nightstand and curled up under the covers. Then, her phone buzzed again, just as she was about to fall asleep. She looked at the clock. 2:03. She put her phone to her ear, not bothering to check caller I.D. She knew exactly who it was.

"Doug, what happened?"

"I got kicked out of a nightclub for being drunk."

"Are you on a payphone?"

"Yeah. Are you gonna go on a date with me?"

Tara pointedly ignored the question. Terra found it completely inappropriate, "Where are you?"

"I'm downtown."

"Where, specifically."

"I dunno," he giggled like a kid wanting to play a game.

"Doug, where are you? What's the biggest thing you can see?"

He giggled again, not answering.

"Doug, this is serious. I'm gonna take you home, so I need to know where you are."

"I'm outside Boothe Memorial Theatre. Why are the r and e backwards?"

"I don't know. Can you just hang tight outside there? Okay? Please?"

"You're gonna take me home?" he giggled again. Tara rolled her eyes.  _Of course he'd think it's inappropriate. He's drunk._

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"Just sit tight."

She got out of bed and went to go change. Tara would generally dress to impress, or at the very least keep up appearances. Terra preferred t-shirts, shorts and thick, heavy leather gloves with goggles. Boots, too. Hiking boots with thick soles, with tough leather snakes couldn't bite through. But she wasn't Terra. Terra was dead. Tara had just woken up and needed to pick up her friend.

Skinny jeans, sneakers, and a bright t-shirt. That's what Tara would wear at 2:00 in the morning. Makeup? No. Terra never had it, found it pointless to pay ten dollars for a tube of foundation when that same ten dollars could pay for a week's worth of food. Tara felt the same way, but because it was cruel to animals or something.  _Old habits die hard, I guess,_  she thought as she tied her shoes, picked up her biking helmet, and grabbed her apartment key from off its hook. She shut her door and locked it tightly. She tiptoed downstairs, sliding out the front door of the complex silently, hoping not to awaken Mrs. Jenkins and have to speak to the police yet again. Tara couldn't stand the perpetual odor of cat pee that seemed to permeate throughout the complex thanks to the old widow's numerous furry companions. Terra had slept in places where drunks had made their own personal lavatories two feet away from her sleeping face.

After she left the building, Tara unchained her bicycle from the stoop railing. As she strapped on her helmet, she slipped the lock and chain into a little saddlebag that hung from the back of the seat. The bicycle was red. Her favorite color. She biked down the street, headed for the Boothe Memorial Theatre to pick up her friend.

_"You were the best friend I ever had."_

_Terra said that to Beast Boy. Not me! Not Tara!_

Within minutes she was downtown, in front of the Boothe Memorial, but Doug was nowhere in sight.

"You've got to be kidding me," she growled as she looked around. Shadows danced in every building inset, and neon lights cast an eerie red glow over the street, like a thousand red eyes watching her.

_"I trusted you! We trusted you!"_

Tara blinked.  _That was Terra,_  she thought _, not me. I don't even know Raven._  She chained her bike to a bike rack and looked around. The street was entirely deserted.

Weird, she thought, reaching into her pocket to get out her phone. She flipped through her recent calls and dialed the payphone. She heard it ringing about a block away. She followed the noise. As she approached, she couldn't shake that something was off. She approached the phone. Someone was sitting slumped against its back, reeking of alcohol.

"Doug?"

The figure didn't move. She bent down to take a closer look. The figure craned its neck. It was Doug, and he was a bit worse for wear. His hair was plastered to his forehead, and his stubble was dotted with specs of vomit. The right side of his head was bleeding from a small cut. He smiled toothily, his brown eyes softening when they recognized her.

"Heeey!" he slurred.

"Come on," she said as she bent down to pull him to his feet, "Let's get you home."

"But I thought we were going on a date," he said sadly as he staggered to his feet, swaying.

_Jesus, now?_

"Doug, it's nearly three in the morning. All the fun places are closed and I've got to get up at six for school. Remember? Besides, it won't be a fun date if you have to go to the bathroom every five minutes to-"

She didn't finish the sentence because he suddenly lurched forward, stumbled to the nearby landscaping, and threw up. She hoisted him back up after he finished puking. He looked at her with a sorrowful expression, "Sorry I ruined our date."

Tara laughed, despite herself. Even had they actually been on a date, throwing up once wouldn't count as ruining it. Not by a long shot.

_A broken ferris wheel, a house of mirrors, a pounding heart, feet running and running and running. Blind panic. Terra finds herself surrounded by her own, horrified face, blue eyes staring at her with horror. She stares at her hands, hands that held someone else's so gently. What had she done?_

"Come on, Doug, I'll take you home."

"Wanna come in for coffee?" he slurred with an uncharacteristically lecherous grin.

Tara slapped his shoulder angrily, "Knock it off."

He looked down at his feet, "Sorry. Won't do it again."

As Tara half-walked, half-carried him down the road, she realized she had left her bike behind. Friends matter first, she thought.

_"Slade was right. You don't have any friends."_

Tara had friends. Three high-school girls and a college boy with a drinking problem, but they were her friends. Doug shuffled along beside her, stopping every few minutes or so to throw up. She slowly began to reconsider the stance that his puking wouldn't have ruined a date. Tara's crush on him was momentarily forgotten when he belched a geyser of vomit that splashed on her arm and her shoes. He drunkenly begged for forgiveness. She used his jacket to wipe it off. Finally, she dumped him off at the front stoop of his home, telling him to get inside while he was still conscious.

"But...Mom'll know I've been drinking."

_Your mother's a saint, Doug, for putting up with this crap night after night._

"She already knows, Doug. I called her on the way to finding you," she lied sweetly, smiling, "I'll call you tomorrow after I get home from school, see how you're doing."

"Okay."

She left him there and made her way back toward the theater, hoping against hope to find an open store that would let her use their bathroom to clean up more thoroughly. The stench made her nauseous. As expected, however, every storefront was closed and presumably locked. She'd have to clean up at her apartment. Tara called it home, but Terra couldn't bring herself to. Terra never had a home for long.

_"She needs more than a place to crash."_

_"She needs a home."_

_"Why not our home?"_

Tara shivered as she relived a familiar stranger's memories. She stood up a little taller, her walk becoming more brisk. She checked the time. 2:37. She couldn't remember the last time she was up so late.

_"Hope you weren't expecting a goodbye kiss."_

_That was cruel_ , she thought before she could stop herself, _needlessly cruel. I'd hurt him enough and he always stood up for me_. Tara shook her head. The memories got worse when she was alone. When she was tired. When she was awake when she should be asleep. Her friends distracted her, but only to a point. As she approached the theater, she saw the bike rack where she had chained up her bike. It was empty, the broken chain hanging off the rack.

The earth quivered, not even enough to merit most people looking up. It felt like little more than a vibration, a buzzing against the feet. Minor earthquakes were more than common on the West Coast, being so close to a major fault line. A Midwestern farmer might panic at the slightest tremor, but residents of the West Coast wouldn't even bat an eye. They happened all the time around here. But Terra knew better. She spun, looking at the closest window. In her reflection, she saw the residual golden glow fading from a pair of bright, terrified blue eyes.

"You have control," she whispered to herself, "Slade taught you. You learned control from him."

_You killed him with your bare hands, Terra._

"Terra?"

She spun in a panic, the voice familiar, a cracking, high-pitched male's. Beast Boy stood there, perplexed, concerned.

"Are you okay?"

_No, no, no, no, no!_

"Why are you following me?" she snapped, backing away, hands before her defensively.

"I'm on the job, looking for a criminal," Beast Boy said, concern radiating from his eyes, "I didn't know you would be here. I didn't even know you'd be awake. It's really late out...are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she lied, her voice shaking with fear.  _I'm not Terra, I'm not Terra, I'm not Terra._

"It's not safe out here, tonight. Do you want me to walk you home?" He took a step toward her.

"No!" she almost shouted.

He backed off, hands raised in a calming gesture, "It's okay, Terra. I just want to help."

"Stop calling me that!"

_I'm Tara, not Terra. Terra was some poor, stupid girl who lost everything because she trusted the wrong person._

"Just...please leave, please go," she whispered, holding her arms.

"Why are you out here?" His voice wasn't demanding, interrogating. Just...concerned. A voice a friend would have when thinking about a friend's safety.

"A friend of mine got drunk at a party," she explained, "He called me and I took him home. Then I lost my bike. It doesn't matter. Please," she whispered, wrapping her arms around herself and turning away, "I just want to be left alone."

"I'm going now, okay? I'm sorry I bumped into you."

It wasn't an insult, or a barb meant to get her to react. It was genuine remorse. She could tell he felt that he was at fault for her state of mind. It only made her feel worse. All he did was check up on her.

"See you around," he said quietly. He morphed and with a flap of owl's wings, he disappeared into the dark night.

"See you," she said to herself, more out of habit than anything. She stared at her reflection. Tara's reflection. Terra's reflection. Then she did what she always did when the going got tough. What she always did when there was an avenue of escape.

Terra ran.


	2. Friends Can Help

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is kind of short and has more background information in comparison to the previous chapter, so I'd like to take a moment and just make a few statements regarding what I'm planning to do here.
> 
> I wrote this fic with the intention of exploring the consequences of secret identities, which is kind of ironic since the show doesn't deal with secret identities much, if at all. So Terra's constant referral of herself, Terra, as "some other girl" in my fic isn't literal. Terra does NOT have multiple personalities. I admit, the way I wrote it tends to lend itself toward that hypothesis, but it's not the reality of the situation. Terra is doing what Terra does best. She's running from her problems. As much as I love her character, she does have a habit of refusing to face the reality of her situation, blowing things out of proportion, and reacting poorly when confronted. Because of this, I believe that when she was given the chance to start over, she took it. "Tara" is, for the purposes of this fic, a classic secret identity with a painful twist, a mask she uses when interacting with the regular, civilian world. In essence, she's put herself in a home-brewed version of the witness protection program using the identity she was born with, and the conflict between Terra and Tara is the reality of her superhero identity catching up to her civilian one.
> 
> The irony here is that, in choosing to be "normal," Terra has had to make a double life. In the animated series upon which this fic is based, the Titans' identities are their superhero identities, which is completely justifiable for four of the five of them. Starfire's an alien with bizarre eyes and strange colored skin, Cyborg is obviously part robot, Beast Boy is green and has animalistic features, and Raven has deathly pale skin, purple eyes, and a constant need to keep a lid on her emotions with taciturn thought and meditation that wouldn't blend well with verbose, argumentative, fast-paced city life. The creators intentionally ignored secret identities in order to facilitate the narrative. Therefore, in order to keep with canon, we have to assume that Terra lived in the same way when she was with the Titans. And that's one of the core pillars that keeps this fic grounded.
> 
> In order to try to be normal, she has to fake it.

Terra hadn't gone to school for two days after taking Doug home that night. She gave the school a courtesy and called each morning, a raspy voice telling the officials that she would be unable to attend classes on account of contracting the flu. The receptionist offered her sympathy and hoped she would come back soon. She had a few free sick days from her job, so she just cashed them in. They knew that Tara would be back. Eventually.

Terra stared at her hands. Her blood-stained hands. Slade wasn't the first. He probably wouldn't be the last. The first had been the victim of a mudslide in the Ukraine. He had been a little boy, only a few years younger than Terra had been. Terra had lost control of her power and the nearby mountain had crushed the boy's home. She had seen him, cold and pale, cradled in his weeping mother's arms, tears streaming down his father's face as he knelt beside his child.

The next had been an old shepherd in Switzerland. She had been helping him with his sheep in exchange for a place to stay and food to eat. He had been standing out at the edge of a rocky outcropping when her powers lashed out. The rock he stood upon suddenly gave way and he fell a hundred feet to his death. She made the mistake of looking over the edge and saw him, limbs twisted at odd angles, blood pooling beneath his greying hair and his broken, kind face. She would remember it till the day she died.

Then there was the earthquake that devastated a city. The casualties numbered in the hundreds, with forty-seven dead and a hundred and eighty five injured. The final body count was not established for two weeks, as the last death was someone who had been trapped under rubble and had suffocated. Terra had walked amongst the carnage, looking at the twisted wrecks that had once been homes and offices. She had looked upon the hundreds of people screaming and crying out for their loved ones.

And that was just Europe.

She'd made her way to America on a boat, hoping against hope her powers wouldn't break the ocean floor and swamp the boat in a tsunami. The ship made it safely to American shores, but Terra was foolish to think that she was safe, that everyone around her was safe. She tried to use her powers to help people, but when they lashed out, they hurt people. Killed them. And the others who witnessed it drove her away in fear and grief. She had eventually come to Jump City, where she met the Titans. And Slade.

Yet out of all the people she killed, Slade was the one who haunted her dreams the most. Unlike the others, his death wasn't an accident. She had killed him in anger, for coercing her to betray the only friends she'd ever had, for turning against her in her hour of need, for turning her into a puppet and an extension of his will. She killed him because she was sick of fighting, sick of hurting good people, sick of running. Every night spent sleeping in alleys, every night eating moldy food, every night spent running from families of people she'd hurt, it all came piling up, all came crashing down, and Terra unleashed all that pain, all that anger, all that fear, and all that hopelessness on Slade.

And it killed him.

 _He was evil_ , she kept telling herself,  _he never cared about you. You were just a means to an end to him._  But when she looked at her hands, they looked stained with blood and they wouldn't stop shaking.

She looked up from her position on her bathroom floor, staring at the mirror on the back of the door. She saw a little girl, naked and alone, curled up in a ball, shivering, dripping water from a shower all over the tile floor. She didn't want to stand, didn't want to look at her own body, didn't want to see the scars over her chest where Slade's neural interface was surgically removed. She used to run her hands through her hair frequently, just to tuck it behind her ear. But now she couldn't, or else she'd feel the bumps where they'd sawed into her skull to remove the neural implants, the devices on her head that influenced her every thought, the devices that made her believe that the Titans wanted to kill her.  _That was all a lie_ , she realized later. They would never have crossed that blood-red line.

 _Except for Raven, maybe_ , she thought. Somehow, that morbid thought comforted her.

A knock on the door made her freeze.

"Tara? It's Kelly."

Kelly. One of Tara's friends, the blonde haired cheer captain and another one of Tara's coworkers. Why she had elected to be Tara's friend, Tara didn't know. Tara was average. No after-school activities, no especially high grades. Tara was just a face in the crowd. Maybe it was because Tara was the most responsible person in the diner. Or maybe it was because Kelly broke the stereotypical mold of an uppercrust rich girl and was kind to everyone she came across.

Tara found it in herself to stand up, keeping her eyes away from the mirror as she picked a bathrobe off its hook and wrapped it around herself. Keeping her eyes on her feet, she carefully stepped out of the bathroom, almost slipping on the water that had dripped onto the floor. She slid her feet into a pair of slippers and made her way to the door, coughing as she did so. She slid open the chain lock and then opened the door, not even looking up as she gestured for her friend to come in.

Kelly looked around and Tara could feel the pity begin to radiate off her as she got a better glimpse into Tara's domestic life, not the schoolgirl facade she put up during class. Kelly cast her a sympathetic glance.

"Are you okay, Tara?"

"I've got the flu," Tara said with a groan as she shuffled over to her bed, sitting down with a grunt. Kelly took another look around the apartment, like an appraiser looking at a house on the market.

"It can't be good for you to be cooped up in here all day," Kelly said, sitting down beside Tara gingerly. She reached over and tucked a loose strand of blonde behind Tara's ear. She was always touchy-feely like that, and sometimes it sent the wrong message to people. Tara knew it was just friendly concern.

"You don't look good. Have you been keeping hydrated?"

Truth be told, Tara had almost been completely forgotten. Terra had been behind the wheel, and she didn't want to eat or drink, just wanted focus on how exhausted she was, how many people she'd hurt. Tara had just come back to the forefront and was still unsure what she'd been doing with her life for the past couple of days. With the dry, sticky feeling in her mouth, though, 'hydrating' hadn't been one of the priorities. She shook her head.

Kelly stood up and went to the fridge, looking inside. She frowned, apparently not liking what she found in there. Tara knew why. Her drink supply was mostly soda with some expired milk she hadn't thrown out yet, nothing someone as health conscious as Kelly would ever drink. Shutting the door and reaching up into the cabinets, Kelly pulled out a glass and filled it in the sink. She brought it to Tara.

"Here."

Tara gently took the glass from Kelly's hand and drank deeply as Kelly sat beside her, "Thanks."

"No problem."

They sat in silence for a moment as Tara nursed her glass. It suddenly came to mind that Kelly was normally at cheer practice around this time.

"Aren't you supposed to be at practice?"

"Coach cancelled practice today. Inclement weather."

Tara looked out her window and saw the water running down the glass in rivulets, heard it pattering on the roof. She hadn't even noticed it was raining, or that Kelly was wet.

"Oh," she said, draining her glass. She moved to stand up, but Kelly gently pulled the glass out of her hand.

"Let me get that."

Kelly refilled the glass and brought it back. Despite Kelly's warmth and kindness, she was awkward when she didn't know what was wrong or why. Needless to say, Tara had a lot of awkward conversations with Kelly. This turned out to be one of them.

"Doug told me you said you were gonna call him," Kelly said as she sat down, trying to break the ice.

"I know. I just didn't want to hear an earful from his parents."

"He's just worried, Tara. Amber and Dionne are, too. Look, you know that you can tell me anything, right?"

"Yeah," Tara sighed. Kelly was wrong. Some things were meant to be secrets, "Everything's fine. I've just been sick these past couple of days."

Kelly shifted nervously.

"What?"

"It's just..." Kelly began twiddling her thumbs, "Ever since that Beast Boy kid showed up and talked to you you've been...sort of...different."

"Different how?" Tara said with more bitterness than she'd intended.

"I mean you've just kinda...closed off."

 _Well that was one way to describe it_ , Tara thought,  _a more accurate term would have been 'mental civil war.'_ She didn't say anything about that.

"I'm sorry, Kelly. It's just...awkward when some guy thinks you're somebody else."

The guilt of the lie nearly tore her heart out.

"He's not just 'some guy,'" Kelly admonished, "He's a Teen Titan."

"Exactly."

"Look," Kelly said, taking Tara by the shoulders, "I'm just trying to see if there was anything...untoward that went on."

"'Untoward?'"

"I mean...did he...did he try to...because you know how some celebrities get around girls. They just don't take 'no' for an answer."

Terra wanted to rip her in half for even the suggestion of it. Beast Boy was not like that. He was  _never_  like that. He was awkward, sheepish. Kind.

Tara glared at her friend, "Nothing happened. He just tried to make me remember stuff that happened with some other girl. He's left me alone since."

"Oh. Well...good."

_Good. Right._

"Did...anything else happen? Anything at all?" Kelly said gently.

Tara had enough. She didn't want to talk about this. She didn't want to tell her that Beast Boy's little visit had brought to mind all the terrible things she had done, "Why are you asking me this?"

"It's just that everything's been normal but you've been in kind of a funk. The only thing that really stood out to me was that thing that happened with Beast Boy, so I assumed-"

"It has nothing to do with that, so just leave it, okay?"

Kelly suddenly went on the offensive, "Okay, then what does it have to do with?"

"It's..."

_I betrayed my friends. I killed someone. I pretend to one of my best friends that I don't even know him._

"It's personal."

Kelly gave her a look and Tara realized it was probably the wrong thing to say. But Terra could never be permitted to come free. Not after that night. Not after she nearly lost control again.

Kelly spoke, "You go to school, go to work, and go straight home, barely talking to any of us, never making any plans to hang out. We call you, it goes straight to voicemail. We text you, get nothing back. All I'm doing is trying to look out for you, so you can at least do me a courtesy and clue me in on what's going on. We're concerned about you. We're your friends. Please. Don't shut us out."

"I'm sorry," Tara said and then did what she always did. She invented a lie and broke her own heart, "Okay. You're right. It does have something to do with Beast Boy. It's just...that poor kid. I could just tell he really felt something for that Terra girl he kept mentioning. He wanted so badly for me to be her. She must have been someone real special to him. But she's gone, and I can't be that girl for him. I feel sorry for the poor guy. He was never anything but nice to me."

"And that's why you've been avoiding us?"

"I guess so. I don't know why, but I keep thinking about how badly his luck turned out."

Kelly gave her a skeptical look, but didn't question the veracity of her statement. She took Tara's hands in hers, "He's gonna be fine, Tara. One day, he's going to find someone else and he'll be happy. Sure, he's grieving now, but he'll eventually move on. And at least one of the lady Titans is still single, right?"

Tara nodded in agreement but the words cut through Terra like a knife. She knew him better. He didn't 'move on' when she was dead, how could he move on if she was alive? Her only choice had been to lie to him, to break his heart, to pretend she was someone else.  _If you want to change your identity_ , she thought bitterly _, you become a liar_. Liar. Traitor. Murderer. All words to describe Beast Boy's perfect girl.

"Tara?"

"Yeah?"

"You kinda zoned out for a second."

Another memory wormed its way out.

_"If you knew something bad about me, would you still be my friend?"_

Experience had taught her that the answer was complicated.

"Oh. Sorry," Tara stood up, shaking her head. It was time to get out of this apartment, get away from Terra for a while, "Thanks, Kelly. I feel a bit better, now. Can we go get something to eat? I'm starving."

Kelly smiled as she stood up beside her, "Great! Do you want me to invite Amber and Dionne?"

Tara smiled, "Sure."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, we're introduced with another one of "Tara's" friends, another OC named Kelly. When I first posted this chapter on fanfiction.net, a reviewer noted that Kelly doesn't seem to have any sort of outward reason for befriending "Tara." This was because Kelly is loosely based off of a girl I knew in high-school. The reason behind this girl's popularity was she was extremely welcoming and friendly to everyone she met, no matter what clique they fit in. I imagine that Kelly is the same way, and considering that she and "Tara" are coworkers at the same dingy little restaurant, I made the assumption that Kelly probably came up to "Tara" on the first day and showed her the ropes. As for Kelly's choice of after school activities, I decided Kelly was a cheerleader simply because it was a plausible position for someone popular to hold.


	3. An Unexpected Meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've kinda realized all the chapters I've posted are heavily angst-indulgent, even though Terra's kind of the definition of angsty teenager. That being said, she has every reason to be. Her background, even without my headcanons, is completely screwed up. I know in the actual comic by DC (the Judas Contract) she's a complete villain, but the way she's portrayed in the show makes her a lot more sympathetic in my eyes. Having something so dangerous and out of control being a part of you that you can't change is bound to mess with your head a little. 
> 
> It's also important to remember that Terra, as well as the Titans themselves, are all teenagers. Oftentimes, it seems like they have reasonably sound judgement, but they're also full of hormones and angst.

"Hey there, stranger."

"Hey, Doug."

"You never called after last weekend."

Tara sighed as she plonked her backpack down on the floor, "I'm sorry. I just had a lot of stuff to deal with."

"Like your bike?"

"Yeah, like my bike."

After lunch with Kelly, Amber, and Dionne, she went down to the police station to file a report on her bicycle. The desk officer, a scrawny, thin-faced, pencil-necked little dweeb, told her flatly that filing the report would be next to useless. Dozens of bikes were stolen every day, and most either ended up returned within the day or never returned at all. The chances of it being the latter apparently increased every hour after the bike was stolen, and reporting three days too late essentially gave the police a file they'd put in a back corner and have to throw away when the statute of limitations ran out. Regardless, Tara filed the report anyway. That was something Tara would do. Terra'd have gone bike hunting that night and kept on the case if other, more pressing concerns hadn't cropped up.

Doug didn't know. He couldn't have known. So of course he felt like she'd blown him off, and it came out in his mildly bitter tone, "So, you didn't call me all week because your bike got stolen?"

_I didn't call all week because I'm a coward._

Tara blinked the rogue thought away as quickly as it appeared. She grabbed her name tag and affixed it to her work shirt, "I'm sorry, Doug. I should have called. I'll make it up to you."

Doug broke into a smile. One thing she liked about him was how easy he was to placate, "Thanks, Tara. Maybe we could go grab a bite of something after work, you know? Talk about things."

Tara had a lot of homework to complete and studying to catch up on. Not only that, Tara was unsure what exactly Doug meant. Was it just two coworkers sharing a friendly meal or was it something more? However, Terra knew some high school girls had a thing for hanging out with college guys. Even if Terra thought it was a terrible idea.

"Sure," she heard herself say, "I'd like that."

After that, Tara diligently went to work, serving customers, wiping down tables, keeping the floor clean and dry, making sure the soda machine was stocked with ice and syrup, and keeping the bathroom stocked with soap and paper towels. As she worked, Tara felt glad that the restaurant's owner and manager was a genuinely nice guy. He mostly hired high-school and college kids, did well to foster teamwork in the workplace, and let students store their backpacks and books in his office. Of all the odd jobs Terra had worked to feed herself, this one was probably the best. Tara had only worked here, and she liked it.

When Tara's shift ended, the manager said that he'd close up shop tonight, which left her free to head home a little early. She thanked him graciously as she took her things from his office. As she stepped outside, she found Doug waiting for her. He had his hands in his pockets and he leaned up against the window.

"Shall we?" he pushed off from the window, standing straighter, a pleasant smile gracing his lips.

"Sure. Where to?"

"There's this pizza place I know," he said, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb, "They serve all day and all night, so I know we can get something there."

"All right."

"Okay, then. Let's go. Wanna walk there or take my car?"

 _Oh, God_ , Tara thought. Most people would pick one option or the other without a second thought. However, Tara had to analyze it. They'd spent the last five hours or so standing, and while that might fatigue Doug's legs, Tara could keep on walking for hours. Terra's survival had depended on it. But if someone were to come looking, she needed to blend in. She needed weaker legs.

"How about your car? My feet hurt," she lied.

Doug's spreading grin told her she'd scored, "All right. Let's go."

They hopped into his car and he drove them down the city streets, awash with vibrant color from every neon light. It didn't take him long to find their destination, even shorter a parking space along the street, yet Tara couldn't help but notice that Doug seemed a little disappointed that the ride was so short. Tara tried to dismiss it, tried to tell herself she was seeing things. After all, Tara hadn't seen that same look on Beast Boy the moment they met in the canyon, all those days that they worked together, that night as he gifted her that beautiful jewelry box.

_"Beast Boy it’s…I don't know what to say!" She stared at the jewelry box, awed by its beauty._

_"You could say, 'Yes,' 'cause I'm about to ask you on a date."_

A heartfelt, handmade gift and an honest, if awkward, declaration of intention. A charming start to the worst night of her life.

 _Not my life,_ she had to correct herself. It was getting harder and harder to distinguish Tara and Terra, ever since-

"Tara?"

Tara blinked, surprised that she was still sitting in the passenger seat of Doug's car.

"Huh?"

His brows were knitted in concern, "You kinda...zoned out for a second. You okay?"

"I'm fine," she said automatically. After all, what would Tara have to complain about?

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

He shook his head, his expression giving way to a smile that hoped to be charming, "Okay, then."

They stepped out of the car and made their way toward the pizza place. Tara quickly realized where they were headed.

"Wait, are we going to Tony's Pizza?"

"Yeah!" Doug replied cheerily, "It's got all this Titans stuff on it because the Titans apparently buy their pizza pretty much exclusively from them. You know the place?"

"Kinda? I've only been once, so..."

That was inaccurate. Tara had been there once, when Beast Boy had dragged her there to try to convince her she'd been there many times before with the Titans.

"Well, you're in for a treat!" Doug's smile grew even wider, "It's all you can eat buffet night."

"Awesome," she replied with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. There were more memories at Tony's Pizza than anywhere else in the city.

Suddenly, Doug stopped in his tracks. She nearly bumped into his shoulder. The look on his face was one of deep concern, "You okay, Tara?"

"Yeah, of course," she lied so easily the truth almost seemed like a falsehood, "Why wouldn't I be?"

Doug rubbed his hands together, one of the few nervous tells he had, "Well...I don't know. If...if you want we can just go back to my car and I can drop you off at your place."

Everything was fine in Tara's world. Going home would just admit that Tara's world was a front, even if people were already clamoring to peer behind the curtain. She didn't know what they thought they'd find, but she knew that instead, they'd find a criminal, a liar, and a horrible friend. She had to keep that curtain closed.

"You worry too much, Doug," she said, "I've just had a long day and I'm tired and hungry. You don't think I want to have pizza with my friend after a long shift?"

"Well, yeah, I guess."

"Then c'mon!" she slapped his shoulder, "Let's go get pizza. I'm starving."

With that, the two of them walked down the block to Tony's Pizza. It was a little place on the corner of a large street junction. The restaurant itself had been built in such a way that it actually resembled a slice of pizza from the air, with the red table umbrellas and yellow floor on the rooftop dining area standing in for pepperoni and cheese, respectively. Doug and Tara found a shaded table on the roof, sitting down with plates stacked high with varying slices of pizza and cheese sticks. Tara also had a salad, which she hated but needed in order to keep thin. Terra remembered that, for the first few days after she joined the Titans, she used to eat everyone's salads because she was so hungry from literally starving.

As they sat and ate, they talked, mostly about their friends. Doug explained that he had known Kelly, Amber, and Dionne since grade school. Though he was a couple of years older than them, he preferred hanging out with them over people who were closer to his age. Tara thought that made him cool. Terra thought it made him immature at best.

"So what about you, Tara? How'd you join our little band of misfits?"

_I destroyed my friendships and turned my back on everything I ever cared about. Then I conquered a city in the name of a sociopath._

"I moved in last year, remember?" she reminded him, "You showed me the ropes and helped me get stuff for my apartment."

"Yeah, I remember. I meant before that. How'd you settle on Jump City of all places?"

"I never told you?"

Doug shook his head. Of course she never told him, she realized. She hadn't had time to truly make up who Tara was yet. The stories were fragile then. She sighed.

"I'm an immigrant. Back then I just got my citizenship and was trying to find a place to fit in. I got lucky. Really lucky."

"You're an immigrant? From where?"

_From Markovia._

"Russia."

"Russia? No way."

"Yeah."

Doug looked awestruck, "You know, I always thought you just moved here from another city, like Los Angeles or something. I had no idea you were Russian. You don't even have an accent."

"I was born like six months before my parents moved to New York."

Doug looked even more intrigued, "New York City?"

Immediately, she thought of cold, hungry, lonely nights behind old, brick buildings. She blinked. Tara never visited New York City, let alone slept in back alleys.

"The state. Never saw the Big Apple," she lied, "My parents moved to Albany and I was with them for a long time."

Doug scratched his chin and looked around, clearly nervous, "So...where are your parents?"

_Dead. I got to learn about it watching a news segment no one else seemed to care about._

"Their visas expired and they couldn't get them renewed."

"That sucks. But how come you didn't get...well..." Doug trailed off, his sympathy evident, his reluctance to talk about the subject even more so. Tara couldn't blame him, even if she felt even worse. Here he was, all concern and sympathy over a pair of people who didn't even exist. The lies tasted bitter in her mouth.

"...deported?" she finished for him.

"Yeah. That."

Slade had scrounged up her citizenship papers and emancipation documents. Despite feeling a cold chill every time she looked at them, they were Terra's lifeline to her new life, so Terra made sure to collect them. Thankfully, they'd been preserved. Somehow. Years of starving made her nothing if not pragmatic. But Tara was a somewhat typical, independent, teenage girl.

"I'd tested into citizenship just before it happened. They told me to file for emancipation when they knew they weren't getting their visas renewed. They didn't want some stranger taking care of their daughter, I guess. So I filed for emancipation, moved to Jump City and, well, here I am."

Doug opened his mouth to reply, but froze, eyes trained over Tara's shoulder.

"Holy shit!" He said softly, his expression eager and full of awe, "Guess who just walked in!"

Tara cocked her head, confused, "Who?"

Doug's face broke out in a wide grin and he whispered with the excitement of a kid on their birthday morning, "The Titans! The Teen Titans are here!"

 _You've got to be fucking kidding me_.

Tara turned to look. Sure enough, the Teen Titans had come to Tony's Pizza, probably to celebrate some victory that'd be on the nightly news in an hour.  She was quick to notice, however, that they didn't seem as pumped up as she remembered. Remember what? This is the first time you've seen them in person all together, she tried to tell herself. However, she couldn't deny that she had celebrated with them before, and she couldn't help but notice that the way they slumped into their seats around one of the nearby tables reminded her of dogs slinking away with their tails between their legs.

"They're so cool!" Doug continued to gush, "Oh man, I can't believe this!"

Terra wasn't listening. She was looking at Robin, watching him grind his teeth and clench his fist. Starfire was gently rubbing his shoulder and murmuring things, appearing so deflated she reminded Terra of a limp balloon. Cyborg sat with his elbows on the table, head gently cradled in his metal hands as he stared down, frustration radiating off him in waves. Raven seemed the most composed of them all, seated with a perfectly straight back, hood drawn over her head, her eyes and jaw the only thing visible under the shadow of her cloak.

Then she caught sight of Beast Boy. He sat, one elbow on the table, his head resting in his hand, cheek smushed against his palm, his other hand idly fiddling with a toothpick as he stared at it with a combination of boredom and that kicked puppy look that Terra had become all too familiar with. His pointy ears drooped down the sides of his head and his fang called attention to his sour frown. He looked absolutely miserable. It took all of her willpower not to get up, sit down beside him, rub his back, and tell him everything was going to be okay.

She stopped herself. _He's a stranger to Tara_ , she reminded herself, _Tara thinks he's a sad sack, pining away for some dead girl who just happens to look like her_. She looked down at her plate, staring at the half-eaten pizza slice laying there. It didn't look nearly as appetizing as it had earlier, orange grease congealing in the awkwardly curled pepperoni and wrinkled cheese.

"I'm not really hungry anymore, Doug," she muttered. She looked up to find him staring in awe at the Titans, blissfully unaware of what Tara had said. She followed his eyes, finding that he gazed at Starfire. Tara rolled her eyes and snapped her finger in front of Doug's face, breaking him out of his stupor.

"Huh? Oh! Sorry!" He immediately said, "We're eating and I got distracted, sorry. What were you saying?"

"I was saying..." she paused, discontinuing her train of thought. Tara had no reason not to stay, "Never mind. How's your pizza?"

"It's good. How's yours?"

"Good."

"Good," Doug said, clearly distracted. Conversation finished, he returned to looking at the Titans. Starfire in particular caught his attention. As she gently rubbed Robin's arm reassuringly, Doug continued to stare at her in wonder. Of course Starfire attracted a lot of attention. She was easily the prettiest. She was also sweet, almost to a fault. No wonder all the guys were enthralled with her. No wonder Doug was standing up from his seat and walking…over…

_Oh, SHIT!_

Alarm bells rang off in Tara’s head and it took all of her willpower not to jump up and tackle Doug to the ground. Tara wasn’t supposed to have a reason to. As her entire body shook, she slowly got up from her seat and followed Doug, careful to keep herself concealed behind him. The Titans didn’t seem to notice them as they approached. Tara was about to intercept Doug when he made it to the Titans’ table. They turned to him as one.

“Sweet, the waiter’s here,” Beast Boy’s ears perked up, but with only half the enthusiasm he normally had in the presence of pizza. _Half the enthusiasm? You don’t know him at all._

Raven gently elbowed him in the side, “Not our waiter, Beast Boy,” she clarified, “He doesn’t even work here.”

“Uh, how do you know that, Miss I-Know-Everything?” Beast Boy countered.

Raven rolled her eyes, “It’s not the uniform waiters wear here. It’s also buffet night, moron.”

Beast Boy was about to retort when Robin cleared his throat and jerked a thumb at Doug, who stared at the group with star struck awe, clearly unable to perceive anything.

“Oh, right,” Beast Boy brushed imaginary crumbs off his shirt and cleared his throat, “What’s up, dude?”

Doug looked at him, completely stupefied by the familiarity of his tone, “…You called me ‘dude.’ Awesome,” Doug murmured to himself.

Terra remembered these kind of interactions from the other side. Someone who was a massive fan would come up in public and get completely tongue-tied by the presence of their personal heroes. Usually, they had a friend who could help translate their reverence into cohesive English and everyone would walk away with autographs. This time, it seemed Doug had no one to translate for him. Until Tara came to the slowly dawning realization that _she_ was the translator.

Immediately, cold horror flooded her. On one hand, Tara would be a terrible friend if she left Doug to stutter and stumble until one of the Titans coerced his desire for an autograph out of him. On the other hand, coming out from behind him and saving him risked exposure for Terra, destroying everything she’d built for herself here. Presenting herself as Tara was a gamble. One misstep and every secret would be revealed. And Beast Boy certainly wouldn’t help matters.

But if she wanted the deception to work, she had to do what Tara would do. And Tara would help her friend.

Tara closed her eyes, uttered a silent prayer, and stepped around Doug to reveal herself.

“Hi,” she waved, and five pairs of eyes turned to her. She froze for a moment, swallowed, and blinked to focus, “I’m Tara. This is my friend, Doug. He saw you guys coming in and he’s a real big fan.”

She felt like all the eyes at the table were scrutinizing her, brains trying to remember where they’d seen her before. Tara hoped that the way her hair shadowed her face would obscure her enough. Robin and Raven were the most unreadable, due to Robin’s mask and Raven’s calculated impassivity. Starfire, however, gasped almost immediately, letting Tara know she’d been made. Cyborg’s human eye went wide with realization. _Stay calm,_ she told herself, _They haven’t said anything yet._

Her heart sank when she looked at Beast Boy. He sported a smug, I-Told-You-So grin. He opened his mouth to say something, but then suddenly grunted in pain.

“Ow,” he hissed, giving Raven a glare. Raven glared back at him and shook her head imperceptibly. Beast Boy turned back to Tara to speak, only to flinch again, “Ow!” he looked over at Raven again, rolled his eyes dramatically and then tried to speak again, only to flinch a third time, “Ow! Raven, what is your deal?!”

Miraculously, Doug snapped out of his stupor and spoke, calling attention back to him.

“Oh my god, you guys are the coolest!” he gushed as he reached into his pockets and produced a notepad, “Can I have an autograph?”

Attention turned away from her, Tara shrunk back behind Doug. She wasn’t sure what, exactly, the Titans were thinking, but she hoped against hope that they wouldn’t bring it up in front of Doug. She was aware of the irony of _Raven_ of all people keeping Beast Boy quiet. Tara wouldn’t be able to thank her. That would defeat the purpose of being Tara.

As Doug’s notepad changed hands from Titan to Titan, Tara observed how they each made their signatures. Cyborg showed off, a pen suddenly poking out of a hole in one of his robotic fingers. He wrote a short, personal message before handing the notepad to Robin, who simply produced a pen from his utility belt and signed it before passing both to Starfire. Starfire grinned proudly and loudly narrated her message in fluent Tamaranian as she wrote before handing off the notepad and pen to Beast Boy. Beast Boy made a crude drawing of all the Titans standing on the body of an unconscious Cinderblock before signing it. Raven didn’t even pick up the notepad, the pen suddenly floating mid-air, shrouded in black, scribbling a short, inspirational, poetic message and her signature of its own accord. Moments later, both pen and notepad returned to their respective owners. Robin casually returned the pen from whence it came, while Doug stared, dumbfounded, at the notepad that deposited itself in his hands.

“Holy crap,” he breathed, “You used your powers on my notepad. That’s freakin’ _AWESOME!!_ ”

As he began to babble to the Titans about how impressive he found their respective abilities, Tara inched backwards slowly, eyeing the sole exit on the rooftop. She supposed she could leap off the guard railing, hop on a rock, and fly off into the night, but that’d be a dead giveaway. Besides. Tara couldn’t physically do that, no matter how much Terra wanted to. Everything screamed at her to, but she knew she couldn’t. It’d give her secret away. She needed to leave doubt, doubt that Tara and Terra were the same person. They needed to be different.

And Terra never had a boyfriend.

Tara shut down the thought that Beast Boy would be crushed as she stepped forward and looped her arm around Doug’s.

* * *

 

As the couple left through the rooftop doors, arm in arm, Beast Boy restrained himself from speaking. He held it until the doors firmly shut, at which point he exploded, unable to contain himself further.

“See?!” he grinned as he gestured to the empty air in front of the table once occupied by Terra and the guy she had been with, “Did I tell you, or did I tell you? She’s _back!_ ”

He expected some sort of jubilant celebration. Maybe that Cyborg would whip out an air horn from one of his many devices and honk it loudly. Maybe Robin would pull a party popper from his utility belt and cover the table with streamers. Starfire would most certainly jump up for joy and wrap everyone in a hug that would pop all the kinks out of his back. Maybe Raven would even _smile._

None of those things happened. Instead, Beast Boy was greeted with an uncomfortably long silence.

Cyborg was the first to break that silence, “Whoa.”

“I believe I am…what is the word? Flabbergasted? Distressed? I have many feelings about this,” Starfire added, curling in on herself a little bit.

“I think we’re all a little shell-shocked, Beast Boy,” Robin said.

Raven added her two cents, “It’s not every day you see someone who looks like the girl who betrayed your team.”

“Wha-? It’s her! That was Terra!” Beast Boy pointed to where she’d been standing moments ago, “Tell me you didn’t see Terra standing there thirty seconds ago!”

“Dude, we get it,” Cyborg sighed, “Terra’s back, you were right. But even if she is back, that don’t explain how she’s back or why she acted like she didn’t recognize us.”

“I don’t know how she came back, but I can tell you why she doesn’t know who we are! She’s got amnesia!”

“It’s possible,” Robin added, “But she’d have had to be hit in the head _pretty hard_ for that to happen.”

Raven rolled her eyes, “We’re talking about a girl who was imprisoned in her own stone power for a year without appearing to suffer any ill effects. None of us have any clue as to what that kind of stasis would do to a person. Who knows what could have happened?”

“Come on!” Beast Boy flailed his arms. His friends were missing the bigger picture and it was starting to frustrate him, “It doesn’t matter what happened before! She’s back! We can put her back on the team!”

At once, the others looked around amongst themselves. Out of all the Titans, Starfire looked the least comfortable. She sat there, rubbing one of her arms as she looked forlornly between her comrades, “I do not know what to make of this development. Perhaps it might be possible, but I am hesitant. Terra was our friend, but…”

She didn’t need to say anymore. Despite forgiving Terra, her betrayal was still something of a sore spot for the team. Beast Boy knew it, but he was certain that, once they had her back, they could create new, fonder memories to heal the wound.

“She betrayed us,” Raven said solemnly, “She made up for it, but she still betrayed us. That cloud is going to follow her wherever she goes.”

“So we’ll make it better.”

“I don’t think it works like that.”

They sat in somber silence, the quiet air casting a pall of uncomfortable tension over the group. It wasn’t lost on Beast Boy that all of them had come here to escape their latest defeat, only to be reminded of one of the darkest tragedies that ever befell them. But it could get better. It could always get better. He thought as much when she came up to them with that dopey college kid. He was certain that, though there by happenstance, she had seen the light and had come to admit to the Titans that she was Terra.

But she hadn’t.

Instead, she’d introduced herself as Tara and asked for an autograph for her friend, who turned out to be named Doug. Beast Boy had signed his notepad with a little doodle, hoping that while he took his time, Terra might crack. He thoroughly underestimated her willpower, however, and by the time she was walking away with Doug, even he was starting to have doubts. If it wasn’t for his abnormally sharp sense of smell and the strange, earthy scent her powers always gave off, he might have bought her little charade.

Sometimes, it was difficult to be the optimist. Thankfully, he wasn’t the only one.

Starfire gently prodded the tips of her own index fingers together as she broke the silence, “Perhaps Terra is afraid that she is still a criminal and believes she must hide herself, despite her heroism.”

“That’s it!” Beast Boy cried out at his sudden epiphany, “We just gotta tell the mayor that she’s back and-”

“-that will start a witch hunt,” Raven finished, slicing his argument to pieces, “I don’t want to crush your dreams, but the five of us are the only people who know that Terra turned on Slade, or even that Terra didn’t take over the city by herself. Telling the mayor is an extremely bad idea.”

At this, Beast Boy felt his blood begin to boil. Ever the pessimist, Raven always did her best to shoot down his ideas, always found the flaws in his arguments, always told him why something couldn’t be done. The worst part about it was that she wasn’t smug about it, just practical. But this time, he’d had enough. This was Terra. His best friend. He wasn’t going to take it lying down.

“You don’t want her back, do you? Is that why you kept kicking me under the table?”

“My personal feelings are irrelevant,” she said as passively as ever, “The reason I kicked you was because you were about to do something incredibly stupid. Let’s face it, Beast Boy. You don’t exactly have the best track record with being tactful. Don’t you think it’s a little rude to just point that out when it’s obvious she’s masquerading as someone else? At best you’d have embarrassed her in front of her friend, at worst you’d have gotten her arrested.”

Beast Boy looked around for assistance, but found the rest of the Titans nodding sagely in agreement with Raven. He felt his blood pressure shoot up and he clenched his fist in irritation.

“So I’m just supposed to sit here and shut up? Even though Terra was standing _right in front of us_? Her friends?”

 “You’re missing the bigger picture,” Raven pointed out, “Unless this is some bizarre coincidence, it seems pretty clear to me that Terra is…”

Raven trailed off at the harsh look Beast Boy gave her.

“Terra is what, Raven? Is what?”

“Beast Boy,” said Robin with the quiet tone of a man at a funeral, “Maybe Terra doesn’t want to come back.”

“She’s moved on,” Raven clarified.

The table went stony silent at that admission. Everything in Beast Boy’s mind rebelled immediately. They were friends. They’d been truly close friends, and something was just missing without her on the team. He couldn’t put a finger on it, but this…dismissal of Terra as not being worth fighting for just rubbed him the wrong way. It didn’t help that Terra had looped her arm around that boy’s like they were some sort of couple.

It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. They used to be so close and now she was a total stranger to him.

_“Things change, Beast Boy,” she said, clutching her school books to her chest, “The girl you want me to be is just a memory.”_

He stood up, having lost his appetite. The open air called him and he itched to transform into a bird. Flight always cleared his head. He felt cool fingers grasp his wrist and found himself looking at Raven.

“It’s going to be okay, Beast Boy.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

At that, Beast Boy morphed and flew.

* * *

 

“I had a good time tonight, Tara,” Doug said as he stood in front of her door.

“Yeah, me too,” Tara said as she swayed back and forth. Dough shifted his weight from foot to foot as well, hands stuffed in his pockets.

“So…would you like to do this again tomorrow night?”  
  
She could see the light in his eyes, the hope that tonight might lead to more nights. Tara knew she was supposed to be flattered. A college guy, picking her of all people. Yet she couldn’t help but remember a handmade, heart-shaped jewelry box that Terra received as a present for her first ever date.

She felt sick.

“I’ve got a lot of homework to catch up on. Maybe next week or something.”

Doug’s entire being wilted like a flower in too much heat. He smiled, though it didn’t quite shine through the disappointment in his eyes.

“Oh. Okay.”

He hunched over, looking anywhere but at her.

“Guess I’ll see you around,” she said as diplomatically as she could manage.

He seemed to shake off his misery, at least for a moment, as he smiled at her again, “Well, I’ll see you at work. Bye!”

“Bye!”

She waved as he walked away. Moments later, she entered her apartment and shut the door. She leaned back against it and sank down to the floor. Doug didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve to deal with stupid issues that belonged to a dead girl. He didn’t deserve to be led on.

_What about Beast Boy?_

She wasn’t being fair to him, either. Poor guy probably didn’t know what to think. He didn’t deserve this ever present limbo of not knowing the truth about her, but she couldn’t tell him. That would lead to follow-up questions she was unable or unwilling to answer.

She had to make a choice, regardless of the pain of the people in the life she didn’t pick. Tara or Terra.

She yanked a quarter out of her pocket. She’d read somewhere that whenever there was an impossible decision, one only had to flip a coin. Regardless of what side it landed, the instinctual, emotional reaction would tell you which one you really wanted. She decided it couldn’t hurt any more than the rest of her screwed up night. She flipped it in the air, watching it spin and spin and spin until it landed in her palm.

She closed her fist around the coin and slapped it against the back of her hand, but she already knew it wouldn’t do any good. The bile in her throat helped her to realize that making any decision didn’t feel right. The only thing she wanted to do was to run, run as far away as she could, and never come back.

 _You can’t run forever_.

She rested her head against the door and stared at her cracked ceiling.

“Shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we had our first POV switch! That's fun! I'm really hoping I characterized the Titans as they are in the show. 
> 
> This chapter had, as you read, a chance meeting. If the meeting seems a little contrived in order to get the angst ball back on the field, it probably is. That being said, I don't think it's impossible (in terms of fiction) for a pizza shop to capitalize off the fact that it sells to superheroes and that people would go to there as a result. That's just advertising.


	4. Make a Decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After coming face to face with the Teen Titans, Terra comes to terms with who she really is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait. I get swept up in stuff and I’m not always eager to put stuff out for people to judge and read, even with everyone having been extremely nice so far. Anyway, enjoy this chapter!

Tara hadn’t slept well that night. She’d been having nightmares of another girl’s nightmarish life. She’d tossed and turned, afraid to close her eyes and see the looming specter of five hurt friends, afraid to open them again to see the cracked ceiling of her dump of an apartment. Tara shouldn’t have these problems. Tara was supposed to be thrilled about living in an apartment by herself, going to school, holding a job, everything. Tara wasn’t supposed have nightmares of sleeping on streets, nightmares of a single eye waiting in the darkness, nightmares of claws and demons ripping her apart for a betrayal. 

 

But Tara did. They were brutal, unrelenting, and completely without mercy. It felt as if Terra was raging a war inside her mind, screaming to be free. The dead girl was trying to break through to the world to consume the living. Tara hated zombie references, found that the concept alone made her skin crawl. Terra and Beast Boy used to try to make the cheesiest ones, their laughter growing to pure, joyful hysteria. 

 

Finally, she had enough of her nightmares and insomnia. She stood up and went into the bathroom, planting her hands on the sink and staring at herself in the mirror. Anger and exhaustion coursed through her as she appraised herself. Her eyes were baggy and radiated with burning hatred. She blinked. She could see herself in the old neural suit Slade “gifted” her, stalking through ruined streets. She blinked. She was back in the grungy bathroom.

 

“This needs to stop!” She growled, hoping that by voicing it aloud, she’d maybe make a difference, “Terra’s gone! Okay? She’s not coming back! Ever! I’m Tara! I’m not a murderer! I’m not a super hero! I’m just a girl! A normal girl!”

 

Her own reflection stared at her in complete disbelief. She sighed. She wasn’t going to win this fight. If it even was a fight. She took a deep breath and let it out. She was so tired of lying. Lying to herself. Lying to her friends. Lying to everyone. But it was what she did. It was easier than breathing. The truth felt just as uncomfortable as lying. She looked up at the mirror again. She looked at the girl who looked back. She didn’t even recognize her. She didn’t know who she was.

 

Tara shuffled back to her bed in her dingy apartment she was supposed to be psyched about, remembering a single room twice as big with stars painted all over the ceiling. She remembered days of hard sweaty work, fighting monsters and creatures and aliens and criminals that defied imagination. She remembered sitting up at night with Beast Boy, laughing at the increasingly hokey horror movies they watched. She remembered the following mornings when Robin would chew them out for waking up late for training, having been up all night. She remembered stone, moving at her whim, dancing to her every thought. She remembered pizza and jokes, stupid pranks and genuine laughter.

 

She realized, too late, she was remembering Terra’s memories. She stamped them out with anger and sorrow, then she wrapped herself up in her blankets and tries to focus on sleeping again. She tried to forget everything that had been Terra’s life. Then she entertained a disturbing thought.

 

Maybe she could let Terra out. Just once. Just long enough to put the minds of the Titans at ease. Just long enough to apologize. Just long enough to tell them she was going to be Tara for the rest of her life. Or maybe she’d want to stay as Terra and leave the life she built as Tara behind. Both thoughts made chills run down her spine. Tara would not disappear unnoticed, but the thought of Doug, Kelly, Amber, and Dionne finding out the truth was more concerning to Tara then how they’d react to her disappearance. So what should she do? She couldn’t be Tara forever. Not without putting Terra to rest. 

 

She wasn’t sure what motivated her, but she got up from the bed again and went to her closet. Only her school uniform hung limply inside like a forlorn specter. She pushed it aside and reached up, knocking gently on the ceiling within until she heard a hollow thump. She pushed and the panel gave way. She reached up inside, palming blindly. Her hand found the plasticky fabric and she grabbed and pulled. 

 

She removed the backpack from the hidden compartment above her closet and brought it out to the living room. She sat down next to it and opened it up, even though she knew what was already inside. She removed the items in reverse order from how she put them in. A blue pair of goggles. A black, long sleeve t-shirt with a stylized T emblazoned on the chest and not enough waist. A cargo belt with a bunch of pouches she never found a use for. A pair of yellow shorts that never went past her thigh. A pair of sturdy leather gloves. A pair of thick hiking boots. Finally, tucked in a small protective case, was a printout from a photo booth from a night that was best and worst night of her life. 

 

She stared at it all. The evidence that Tara, for all her blister, was just lying. The evidence that Terra wasn’t really dead, just hiding under a name she’d had in a time before heroes and villains. She ran her fingers over the fabric of the shirt. She slipped the gloves on just for a moment. They fit perfectly. She held the pictures and stared at them. Ran her finger over them. Then she looked away, steeled herself, and methodically put it all back the way she found it. Pictures, boots, gloves, shorts, belt, shirt, and goggles. She zipped the bag up, put it back in its hidden compartment, and put the panel back in place before pulling her high school uniform back to where it was. 

 

Tara couldn’t be Terra. Terra couldn’t be Tara. She’d have to become one and destroy the other. She knew this now. She didn’t know if she had the strength to do it, the strength to make that decision. So she got back into bed and couldn’t even find the strength to sleep. 

 

This was the fault both Tara and Terra shared. She would put decisions out of mind until it was too late. She couldn’t decide to betray the Titans until Slade forced the issue. She couldn’t decide to tell Beast Boy about her lack of control until she lost control. She couldn’t choose between Tara or Terra. She hoped against hope that for now she could be both.

 

That thought finally got her to sleep.

 

*******

 

It happened when Tara was walking home from school. Kelly, Amber, and Dionne had decided to tag along. Tara was glad they had. They put her fears to rest as she joked and laughed with them. Kelly couldn’t stop bouncing with excited energy. 

 

“Guys, guess what?” she asked in a gleeful, childlike tone. 

 

Tara said, “What?”

 

Kelly’s face lit up, “Scott asked me out!” 

 

Tara mirrored the shock and elation of her other two friends. Scott was a hot-shot football player with an ego the size of Texas. Tara, in sync with Amber and Dionne, thought he was gorgeous. It made sense that he’d go for Kelly, cheer captain. And it made sense that she’d say yes. It would also make sense that her friends would be both happy for her and a little bit jealous. But, like all teenagers, they had to go through the motions.

 

“What did you say?” Amber asked excitedly even though she already knew the answer. 

 

“I said yes! We’re gonna go to the pier this weekend!” Kelly beamed, happy almost beyond belief.

 

“Girl, you’re lucky you got him all to yourself!” Dionne said with a grin, “If he’d waited any longer, I’d have snagged him up!”

 

Tara laughed. They all laughed. Moments later they all moved to tease and make inappropriate jokes about Kelly and Scott. That’s what teenagers their age did. They were unaware of the sirens in the distance. Cities always had sirens every once in a while. They didn’t even pay attention to the heroes flying overhead, diving down toward the street a block away, their landing obscured by the buildings between them. Tara’s hair suddenly stood on end when she started to hear the sounds of battle she was at once familiar with and unaccustomed to. Her friends noticed her sudden tension. It sucked the levity out of the air. 

 

“Tara?” Kelly asked, worry lacing her voice, “What’s wrong?”

 

Tara couldn’t place an exact feeling to it. More like a primal response to danger that she felt deep in her bones. She couldn’t know where or why, but it was telling her that if she didn’t move her friends out of the way right now, something terrible would happen to them. She did the only thing she felt she could do. She tackled them to the ground, their confusion twisting into outrage.

 

A moment later, the wall exploded outward. Debris rained down on them all as Tara shielded them with her body. A shard of concrete ripped into her side, tearing skin and cloth alike. She didn’t even feel it. She grit her teeth as what felt like pebbles and stones assaulted her back and head, only just holding back from using a dead girl’s powers to shield herself. Something massive stepped over them, ignoring the girls as it focused on its target. Once free of its legs, Tara and her friends scrambled behind a nearby car for cover. 

 

Cyborg’s body bounced along the road and across the street, smashing through the front window of a restaurant. He staggered to his feet and shook himself off, his arm transforming into its sonic cannon. He popped his neck with a jerk of his jaw. The creature stood in the middle of the roadway, already morphing into the concrete underneath it. 

 

Cyborg smirked, “You’re going to regret that!”

 

He took aim and fired. The blue beam struck the creature dead center in its apparent chest, knocking it back. It staggered, but it didn’t fall. Tara remembered it. It was the thing the Titans were fighting that day when Beast Boy caught sight of her and started this whole debacle. As it righted itself, Tara saw two red blurs strike it in the back. She recognized them as explosives moments before they detonated in gouts of fire. Robin landed on the roof of the car next to Tara and her friends. Amber ducked and covered her head, nearly in a fetal position. Dionne was swearing as she tried to peer around the car to get a look at the creature as more explosions shook the street, star bolts raining down from the sky. Kelly stared at Tara in disbelief. 

 

“How did you know that was gonna-“

 

Tara looked over Kelly’s shoulder as she spoke. Instinct kicked in. She grabbed Kelly and pulled her in close before pinning herself against the side of the car. Moments later a massive tiger with green fur striped with almost blackened emerald bounded past, snarling as it leapt up on the Titans’ opponent in a blur of claws and teeth. Raven swooped past and pulled a light pole from it’s root, the street lamp blackened with the energy from Raven’s soul. She used it as an impromptu telekinetic club, the metal bending as it struck the creature with thundering force. Tara looked over Kelly’s shoulder as more instinct and muscle memory kicked in. The way was clear. 

 

“We gotta go! Now!”

 

Kelly looked confused and absolutely terrified. Amber hadn’t come out of the fetal position. Dionne was the only one who seemed on board. Tara peered around the car.

 

“Go!”

 

Dionne ran without hesitation, followed a moment later by Kelly. Tara was about to leave when Amber whimpered in fear and clutched her arm. 

 

“I don’t wanna die!” She begged. Tara took hold of her arm and pulled her up. 

 

“Then we’re gonna have to run. Okay?”

 

Amber shook her head.

 

“We have to!” Tara insisted.

 

As if to punctuate the moment, Starfire landed hard on the front hood of the car, crushing the metal and shattering the front windshield, the glass raining down around them as Amber covered her head and Tara shielded her. Amber looked up. 

 

“Okay! Go! I’m right behind you!”

 

Amber made a run for it toward Kelly and Dionne, who were frantically waving at Tara and Amber to hurry up from the cover of a car half a block away. Amber took a spill and Tara hauled her to her feet. She could feel the heat from the star bolts as Starfire rained down a retaliatory volley. The car they’d been hiding behind burst into flame. Amber nearly fell again. They were in the thick of it.

 

“Keep running!” Tara shouted over the din of the battle raging around them. Amber didn’t need much convincing. She picked up speed, throwing herself forward. Tara was right behind her. The two of them reached Kelly and Dionne, Amber flinging herself into Dionne’s arms, Tara collapsing against the car, panting. Kelly looked on, the color draining from her face with growing horror. 

 

“Tara,” she squeaked, “You’re covered in blood.” 

 

Tara looked down in disbelief. She looked like hell, that was certain. The whole right side of her white shirt was stained red, the darker centering around the rip in the side. She slowly lifted the shirt up with shaking fingers so she could examine it. Her wound was jagged, torn flesh bleeding steadily. It was like one of the times she accidentally cut herself on a rock while exploring a cave for shelter. It looked worse than it was, but it was going to need stitches. White fabric absorbed a lot, too. She looked up at her friends, each of whom stared at her with pale, worried faces.

 

“You’re gonna be okay,” Kelly said in a tone that suggested that clearly she was not going to be okay. Amber was on the verge of tears. Dionne looked around, practical as ever. She pointed down the street, eyes flashing with hope. 

 

“Cops are setting up a barricade over there! If we can get to them, there’s probably paramedics! We’ll be able to get you to the hospital!”

 

Tara could only nod. The adrenaline was fading, meaning so was the ability to keep standing. Kelly slung one of Tara’s arms over her shoulder. Amber got the other one. They hauled her to her feet. She was able to stand, but she felt lightheaded. She hadn’t really seen her own blood in this great a quantity before. She almost wished Kelly hadn’t pointed it out. Maybe she’d been wrong about her own assessment of her injury. 

 

Something slammed into the car beside them. The car rocked onto two of its wheels before coming back down with a crunch of shifting metal.  Her friends ducked, as did Tara. She fell, but they caught her and hauled her back up. They started to pull her toward the police blockade. A large chunk of roadway, pulled up by unknown means, landed hard in their path, debris and dust shooting up from the point of impact, the force of the collision knocking Tara and her friends to the ground. 

 

Tara’s ears rang as she started to drag herself away. Dionne was lifting an apparently unconscious Amber up and dragging her away. Amber’s red hair draped over her face. Tara turned to look at Kelly. Kelly sat on the sidewalk, her face running red with blood from a cut on her forehead. She looked around numbly. Tara couldn’t get up and help her. She tried to crawl forward and cried out when she felt her wound scrape against the concrete of the sidewalk. 

 

She looked up and her blood froze to the bone. Beast Boy was lying on his side, limp, eye closed as he feebly tried to push himself up, his whole body shaking with the effort. The creature loomed over him as it advanced, stomping forward unopposed. Behind it, Tara could see Cyborg, limbs sparking, helping a battered Raven up as Starfire gently picked up a limp Robin, too busy saving a teammate to save their teammate. Tara looked around as Beast Boy struggled to even maintain a semblance of consciousness. Beast Boy was vulnerable, a violent, dangerous thing bearing down on him, with no one to stand in its way.

 

No one except Terra.

 

“Leave him ALONE!”

 

Terra pushed herself to her feet, her body thrumming with adrenaline. Her vision tinted with a golden hue as she lifted her hand and reached out with her mind. That giant slab of concrete that had so effectively blocked off her escape ripped free of its moorings and hurtled toward the monster. The concrete exploded in a shower of debris as the monster flew back with the force of the blow. Terra advanced, large chunks of concrete and stone ripping right out of the earth around her before launching themselves at the creature, a sustained and devastating barrage. Her body sang with power that was finally unleashed.

 

She noticed its oval mask, the strange markings on it. She made it her target. She launched projectile after projectile at it. From the ones that struck, she fashioned more projectiles, faster shards of stone that flew through the air like bullets. A lifetime of pain, regret, and anger went into every blow and she couldn’t help but think that it was a little therapeutic. She didn’t even notice when the mask made a sickening crack and the creature turned from concrete to a pure white humanoid, its true form. 

 

“Leave my friends alone!” She roared  as she lifted a fist and thrust her hand forward, the hand glowing with golden light. A stone, jagged and solid, flew through the air at her call, speeding towards its destination. It struck the creature right in the center of its mask. The mask bent inwards before finally splitting in two, electricity arcing from the break and spreading all over its body. It convulsed and sank to its knees, twitching as servos and mechanical components began to power down. It reached out toward Terra with one of its hands before a final whirr of a motor signaled the end and it froze. 

 

She wasn’t content with that. She lifted her hands as a final stone ripped itself from beneath the street. She sent it hurtling forward. It struck the thing in the chest, the body caving inward with the force and speed of the giant stone. With the stone now lodged in the machine’s chest, Terra lifted her hands and split the stone. She pushed the two halves in opposite directions, straining as the stones met resistance. Metal groaned as the pressure mounted, but Terra wouldn’t give in. She gave it her all. With a screech of rending metal, the two halves of the machine separated. Tubes full of what appeared to be blue oil burst and sprayed their contents everywhere. Robotic components and pieces of machinery scattered across the street as the robot’s remains fell. 

 

Terra fought the desire to reduce it all into dust. Her power thrummed like it was some alien entity, finally free of its cage and hungry for destruction. She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath. The golden glow faded and she felt normal again. Then lightheaded. She turned and looked over to Tara’s...her friends. Their jaws hung open in unadulterated shock. Even the Titans looked like they’d seen a ghost. Terra realized they probably had. She felt woozy. Beast Boy had dragged himself to a sitting position, awe radiating from him. 

 

Terra had only the semblance of mind to offer him a shy, apologetic wave before darkness washed over her and she blacked out.

 

*****

 

Terra woke to the sound of an EKG. It beeped at a steady pace. Her tongue felt thick and dry in the back of her throat. Everything was a haze. The bright fluorescent lights above her looked fuzzy. She blinked a couple times and her eyes came back into focus. She felt a tube running across her face, two little prongs hissing air into her nostrils. Oxygen. She looked down and saw she was in what appeared to be a hospital gown. Her side ached with a dull throb. She pressed her hand to it and felt fabric and a sharp sting. 

 

“Hey, you’re awake!”

 

The voice that has said that was scratchy, upbeat, and cracked like thin ice. Terra jerked when she heard it and twisted her head so fast her neck twinged in protest. In a bed to her left, with an oxygen tube running across his face, sat Beast Boy. He grinned like it was his birthday.

 

“Hey, Terra!” He chirped.

 

She whipped her head around to confirm what she already knew. She was in the Titan Tower infirmary. To her right, Raven lay supine, levitating a foot and a half off her bed. She looked like a corpse that would be present in a coffin, and Terra probably could have been easily convinced Raven was dead if she wasn’t floating, her entire form gently bobbing up and down.

 

Beyond Raven, Robin lay stiffly with the back of his bed propped up, one arm in a sling, the other flipping through channels on the small TV in the upper corner of the room. His furrowed brow indicated he wasn’t taking his healing time very well. Always the restless and relentless leader. 

 

Starfire was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Cyborg, but moments later the door swung open and he confindently stepped into the room. Every bit of metal on his body gleamed like it had just been polished. Terra recongnized that they were probably fresh replacements. 

 

“Alright, let’s see what we...” Cyborg trailed off as his eyes fell on her and then his whole face lit up, “Hey! You’re awake!”

 

Terra sat up a little, unsure how to respond. She couldn’t help but smile at his expression. She decided she couldn’t really hold it all in any longer. Years of pent up grief and relief came bubbling up to the surface.

 

“Long time no see, guys,” she managed to get out before she broke down into choking sobs.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m gonna make some edits to the formatting of this chapter to line it up with the rest of the work, once I get to a computer. Posting from a phone is bizarre.


End file.
